MB> If it rains, do you say the sky is deceitful because it must be sunny
 MB> instead? If gravity keeps the heaviest elements below us, and the
 MB> lighter ones above us, do you say gravity is lying?  No, gravity tells
 MB> the truth, it is honest, and its purpose is understood.  God made it
 MB> that way.
 MB> I cannot accept an ordered universe without God.
   Mark, I'm not here to refute or argue with most of what you have said but
it does occur to me that some of this may miss the point for the reality of
lived life.  I could not help thinking that perhaps the difference between 
he
scientists "accepting" an ordered universe (presumably one by which we can 
et
our clocks) and those who scientists or not wonder if the existence or
non-existence of God meets them anywhere in life on the edge of freedom and
necessity or in its moments of deepest tragedy.  Berdiaev, who was quite well
informed on philosophy could not help but symbolize the universe (world) as
"fallen" and in need of redemption and Pascal, as is well known uttered in 
is
Pensees the cry, "not the God of the philosophers but the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob."  
   On one thing, I sense that we ARE in pretty good agreement.  I'm pretty
certain in the sunset years of MY life that despite the evidence and
revelation that God SURELY does not exist to fulfill any dream *I* might 
ave,
however noble it might appear to be to me, there are not several or even two
distinct realities.  The reliability of the universe is difficult to deny and
for man it often shows a high degree of tragedy.  In order to conceive the
world of the present as having meaning for "man" (a symbol itself) one might
well have to ground it, as did St. Paul, in myth.  In his myth, there was the
"First Adam" and then the Christ as a "Second Adam."  Subsequent thinkers 
ave
developed "ages of the Father, Son, and Spirt" as concrete epochs with dates
while a Hegel could conceive that the "death of God" meant that in the early
19th century that which had only been symbolized as spirit had now become 
eal
as incarnate in man.  Through all of this, mystics like Eckhardt and Chardin
whether cleric or scientist have insisted that "God" could, indeed, not be
separate from that which is often symbolized as "creation."  I think they 
lso
realized that man must be satisfied with only a partial "knowing" in this
realm of consideration of the whole.  The ineluctable condition of man, I
think is to realize that Faith really can only be "seeing through a darkened
glass."  The "order" of the universe may be easy to talk about but the
inevitability of nature "red in tooth and claw" is, sometimes inscrutably,
also a vital part of that order and that reality.  Faith must ALSO deal with
that.  
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
   
--- PPoint 2.05
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